On The Radar with Julia Gray

In our final episode of On the rADAr with Julia Gray, Julia is joined by BBC Radio 4's Timandra Harkness, whose career has taken her from presenting documentaries, to performing comedy shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and to publishing a book on Big Data. In today's episode, recorded live at the Richmond Lit Fest, Julia and Timandra discuss what Big Data is, how useful it can be, what Ada Lovelace would have thought of it, and how data played a part in the 2016 US Presidential Election. Timandra Harkness is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a presenter of BBC Radio 4 documentaries including Divided Nation and the FutureProofing series, author, and event speaker. Her first book, Big Data: Does Size Matter? was published in June 2016 by Bloomsbury Sigma. You can follow Timandra on Twitter @BigDataBook and @TimandraHarkness. On the rADAr with Julia Gray is a fortnightly podcast series produced with Andersen Press, to celebrate the publication of Julia's new novel, I, Ada: Ada Lovelace: Rebel. Genius. Visionary, a witty and absorbing portrayal of the tumultuous teenage years of Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician who is considered to be the world’s first computer programmer.Now available in paperback. Head to https://www.andersenpress.co.uk/athomeyalc-2020-ya-samplers/ to read the first two chapters.Produced by Jonathon Moore and Julia GrayMixed and edited by Jonathon MooreMusic by Second Person

Julia's guest this week is Cell Biologist, Immunologist and expert in infectious diseases, Dr Susanna Bidgood. In today's episode, Susanna discusses what immunology actually entails, her route into her career, how milkmaids have helped us to understand immunology, her favourite discoveries and the key attributes that make a successful scientist. From the exciting breakthroughs to the new challenge of COVID-19, and on to HIV immunology, Susanna has had a varied career, which she discusses at length in this fascinating interview.Dr Susanna Bidgood is a research scientist working on how the human body defends itself from viral infections. She aims to design better anti-viral therapies by studying how poxviruses evade our natural human immune defences. She currently works at the MRC Labatory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London, where she is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow. She has presented her research to a wide range of audiences including the Queen, MPs at the Hosue of Commons, school and undergraduate students. She gives public lectures and was invited to speak at the inaugural Mensa Biomedical Sciences day.On the rADAr with Julia Gray is a new, fortnightly podcast series produced with Andersen Press, to celebrate the publication of Julia's new novel, I, Ada: Ada Lovelace: Rebel. Genius. Visionary, a witty and absorbing portrayal of the tumultuous teenage years of Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician who is considered to be the world’s first computer programmer.Now available in paperback. Head to https://www.andersenpress.co.uk/athomeyalc-2020-ya-samplers/ to read the first two chapters.Produced by Jonathon Moore and Julia GrayMixed and edited by Jonathon MooreMusic by Second Person

In this week's episode, Julia is joined by Professor Tonia Vincent from the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, who has been a consultant rheumatologist for the past 15 years. Tonia talks about the academia in rheumatology, how COVID-19 has impacted consultants and the clinical work they do, and what she envisions the future and next developments in osteoarthritis might be. Tonia Vincent studied medicine at University College London, qualifying in 1993. She trained as a junior doctor in London, later specialising in Rheumatology. In 1998 she took time out to do a PhD at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology under Professor Jeremy Saklatvala. She continued at the Kennedy Institute as a Wellcome Trust clinician scientist and then as an Arthritis Research UK Senior Fellow. In 2012 the Kennedy Institute moved to the University of Oxford and she was appointed Professor of Musculoskeletal Biology. She directs the Versus Arthritis-funded Centre for Osteoarthritis Pathogenesis. Her research interests include the molecular pathways that explain how cartilage responds to injury and their role in osteoarthritis. She continues to be clinically active, running both hand osteoarthritis clinics and a multidisciplinary Marfan Syndrome clinic. She is married to a musician and has one daughter, five stepchildren and nine step-grandchildren!On the rADAr with Julia Gray is a new, fortnightly podcast series produced with Andersen Press, to celebrate the publication of Julia's new novel, I, Ada: Ada Lovelace: Rebel. Genius. Visionary, a witty and absorbing portrayal of the tumultuous teenage years of Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician who is considered to be the world’s first computer programmer.Now available in paperback. Head to https://www.andersenpress.co.uk/athomeyalc-2020-ya-samplers/ to read the first two chapters.Produced by Jonathon Moore and Julia GrayMixed and edited by Jonathon MooreMusic by Second Person

In this week's episode of 'On the rADAr with Julia Gray', Julia speaks with Dr Vanessa Lowe about her work as a biologist specialising in cardiology. From discussing successful experiments, to her PhD project working with regenerating zebrafish, Vanessa talks about her varied career, as well as discussing what it was like working on the ground during the pandemic, and her time in a COVID test centre.Dr Vanessa Lowe studied Cell Biology at the University of Manchester; whilst there, she went for a year in industry/experience in University of Nevada, Reno to work on digestive system motility. She went on to do a PhD at University College London, funded by the British Heart Foundation. Her thesis was focused on understanding mechanisms of zebrafish heart regeneration. She now works with Prof. Adrian Hobbs at Queen Mary University looking more closely at a molecule called CNP that could improve the heart’s function and reduce scar tissue after a heart attack. During lockdown she worked up at the Milton Keynes Mega lab helping to process COVID swab samples for 3 months, which was a weird but amazing experience.On the rADAr with Julia Gray is a new, fortnightly podcast series produced with Andersen Press, to celebrate the publication of Julia's new novel, I, Ada: Ada Lovelace: Rebel. Genius. Visionary, a witty and absorbing portrayal of the tumultuous teenage years of Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician who is considered to be the world’s first computer programmer. Now available in paperback. Head to https://www.andersenpress.co.uk/athomeyalc-2020-ya-samplers/ to read the first two chapters.Produced by Jonathon Moore and Julia GrayMixed and edited by Jonathon MooreMusic by Second Person

In this week's episode of 'On the rADAr with Julia Gray', Julia speaks with Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan about her incredible work in neurology. From talking about her bestselling books on psychosomatic disorders, to discussing some of the more unusual cases she has worked on, Suzanne opens up about her extensive career, while also sharing her hopes for the future of neurology. Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan is a consultant neurologist based in London at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. She also writes about her work as a doctor. She won the Wellcome Book Prize for her first book It's All in Your Head which tells the stories of people with psychosomatic illness. Her second book Brainstorm takes a journey around the brain through the stories of people with epilepsy.On the rADAr with Julia Gray is a new, fortnightly podcast series produced with Andersen Press, to celebrate the publication of Julia's new novel, I, Ada: Ada Lovelace: Rebel. Genius. Visionary, a witty and absorbing portrayal of the tumultuous teenage years of Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician who is considered to be the world’s first computer programmer. Now available in paperback. Head to https://www.andersenpress.co.uk/athomeyalc-2020-ya-samplers/ to read the first two chapters.

FIRST EPISODE COMING 3 SEPTEMBER 2020‘On the rADAr with Julia Gray’ is a new mini podcast series celebrating women who are doing extraordinary work in science. Author and musician Julia Gray will be talking to guests about their ambitions, inspirations, ground-breaking work, and the legacy that has been left behind by pioneers such as Ada Lovelace.The podcast is being released to celebrate the publication of Julia Gray’s new novel, I, Ada: Ada Lovelace: Rebel. Genius. Visionary, a witty and absorbing portrayal of the tumultuous teenage years of Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician who is considered to be the world’s first computer programmer. Available in paperback 3 September 2020. Head to https://www.andersenpress.co.uk/athomeyalc-2020-ya-samplers/ to read the first two chapters.Julia Gray is a writer and singer-songwriter. Her debut book The Otherlife was longlisted for the Branford Boase Award and nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and her second book, Little Liar was shortlisted for CrimeFest’s Best Crime Novel for Young Adults 2019. Julia studied Classics at UCL and has a diploma in Children's Literature and an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, for which she received the Sophie Warne Fellowship. She has released three albums with the trip-hop/jazz collective Second Person, and more recently two solo albums.